(Breather) One great question from Mike about how to return to running after a long layoff opens up a great discussion on the topic of pacing yourself appropriately to avoid the all too common breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury that comes from following the prevailing “no pain, no gain” approach to fitness.
The truth is that getting sore after workouts is not a sign of a job well done, but a way to stall your progress and delay recovery time. A revolution is afoot in fitness, thanks to the great work of Dr. Craig Marker (listen to the HIIT vs HIRT Breather show), Joel Jamieson (listen to his interview here), Firas Zahabi (check out this clip on Joe Rogan where Joe trips out on the insight that you should never be sore after workouts), and Dr. Phil Maffetone (listen to his interview here). If you can perform well within your capabilities, you can build and build without the interruption, immune suppression, and cellular breakdown caused by overly stressful workouts.
We also hear a great success story from Maciej that will get you inspired to put your ego aside and align your workout behaviors with your stated goals, instead of chasing instant gratification. Thanks to listeners for sharing questions and feedback, and please feel free to communicate with us: getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com
TIMESTAMPS:
Mike Green wants to know the best way to get back into running after hip replacement surgery. You don’t have to suffer. [03:25]
You don’t want to introduce muscle soreness as a regular recurring element of your sprinting training program. [07:11]
If you can’t hold a deep squat position for 3 or 5 minutes, you need to work on this by practicing lunges and stretching. [16:36]
Maciej asks: Could you elaborate on how many workouts per week should be, could be glycolytic.? I’d like to know if you’ve noticed any changes in your running cadence, uh, or changes in your ego [19:58]
Keep trying to become a fat burner rather than a sugar burner. [25:43]
LINKS:
- Brad’s Shopping Page
- Brad’s running technique
- Brad’s Running drills
- Hit vs.Hurt, Dr. Craig Marker
- Firas Zahabi
- Eliud Kipchoge
- Mark’s Daily Apple
- Vibrams
- Amazing Feets
LISTEN:
Get Over Yourself Podcast
Brad (03:25):
Hey, it’s time for a breather show brought to you by the listeners. That’s right. We are a community here. I love hearing from all you all, any kind of comments. I get some great compliments here. Uh, some thank you’s for success stories of following the recommended approaches of the day from expert guests and from my breather shows. So let’s say hello to a few wonderful listeners with some interesting commentary and please join. Join the party. Email: getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com with comments, questions, anything you’d like me to cover in a future show, starting out Mike Green. He says, Hey, Brad, I’ve been following you and system for eight years. Thank you so much for the excellent work. I had my left hip replaced at 61, and now I’m feeling fully recovered, ready to get back into a regular routine. I’d love to start running again, even though I haven’t done it in about 20 years.
Brad (04:24):
Oh, okay. So getting a hip replacement and then getting back into running might be fraught with a little bit of a danger, so we gotta make sure we do it right. Huh. And uh, Mike says that he has a pretty heavy weekly travel schedule. And so he’s been mostly working out in the hotel fitness equipment, swimming, things like that. So he’s been maintaining his cardio for many years, but now that he’s home, the new normal, I want to start running again. How do I safely and smartly begin doing this activity again? I loved your video on proper running technique. Go check that out on YouTube. It’s gone viral baby. It’s called Brad Kearns running technique instruction. Uh, my man, Brian, my filmmaker and I hanging out in a random park in Portland, Oregon, and Oh boy, people seem to like this thing. We had a lot of fun filming it.
Brad (05:17):
And I think I have some really good tips in there for runners of any level, especially joggers that think form is not important. You will learn a lot and you’ll help reduce injury risk. So go check out that YouTube video. And Mike’s asking with the drills that you showed on the video would be a good place to start perhaps at a slower pace than you demonstrate. Thanks for your suggestions. Yeah. I think this is a question of great relevance to many of us, uh, getting back into the fitness scene the right way so that we don’t blow out, uh, joints and connective tissue and have setbacks and a topsy turvy journey rather than a nice, beautiful, steady, uh, to continued fitness breakthroughs. And this is so common even in serious athletes, uh, whether they’re, uh, uh, distance runners, endurance runners, triathletes, where you’ll have a bad, uh, three months or a bad, a bad year, uh, fraught with injuries, illness, breakdown, burnout, and things that set you back from your progress.
Brad (06:18):
So, uh, proceeding at a safe and comfortable pace, I think is really important, uh, in this context that someone starting up from scratch, but it could be, uh, anything to continue progressing without risk of setback. Uh, I’m particularly interested in the recent breakthrough insights in the fitness scene, uh, from people advocating that you don’t really want to push yourself too hard in their same refrain of no pain, no gain that we’ve been ascribing to in the fitness world for so many decades. So finally that’s being tossed aside and it’s such a wonderful breakthrough because it doesn’t have to entail pain and suffering. And I see so many people in the gyms and on the roads of America and elsewhere seemingly suffering in the name of fitness because they probably think this is the way I have to do it. If I’m going for a run, I have to suffer.
Brad (07:11):
And when you look at the example set by the elite athletes of the planet, uh, they are training in many respects, much less stressful manner than the average jogger. In other words, the percentage of maximum heart rate or however you want to measure it, the recreational enthusiast is blowing out their, their hormones, their connective tissue, their daily energy levels, their metabolic function pushing over toward carbohydrate dependency rather than getting good at burning fat because the workouts are too stressful in nature. So some quick tips to digest. One of them is that you don’t really want to introduce muscle soreness as a regular recurring element of your training program. If you’re going out there and getting sore more than once in a blue moon, you are doing something in a flawed manner that is not helping your progress. So the idea that soreness is leading to fitness breakthroughs are getting bigger muscles is being completely refuted by emerging science and the practices of the world’s elite athletes.
Brad (08:16):
Listen to my show with Dr. Craig marker called Hit versus Hurt, or he talks about the disassembling and de emanation of cellular proteins. When you try to sprint for too long of a duration, namely over 20 seconds. So when you try to sustain maximum output for longer than 20 seconds, you literally break down the structure of your cellular material to fuel the high demand furnace to power you through your 10th interval interval on the spin bike lasting for 30 seconds with not enough rest in between the maximum output sprints. So if you’re sprinting for a maximum of 20 seconds, you want to have a lengthy rest period after that so that you can put out another sprint of excellent high quality without breaking down the structure of yourself. Uh, one of the byproducts of disassembling and deemanation is ammonia toxicity.
Brad (09:11):
And guess which cells are most sensitive to that that’s right, your brain cells, because those neurons need to fire with clean burning fuel, a nice healthy metabolic state. And so when you’re cooking this ammonia running through your bloodstream in the 24 36, 48 hour aftermath of a workout, that was too stressful. You’re getting those afternoon blues and brain fog and all these side effects of a workout protocol that is too stressful. Uh, you can go look on YouTube for a coach, a famed MMA trainer coach, uh, out of Toronto named Firas Zahabi. He was on the Joe Rogan podcast and he blew Joe Rogan’s fitness, primitive mind when he said, look, I don’t want my, the athletes ever getting sore. And Joe was like, what the F you talking about, man, I’m sorry. After every single workout I push push push, right? That’s his, that’s his methodology. there honoring David Goggins and all the people that are a gas pedal on all the way away.
Brad (10:06):
But we need to think about this in a more nuanced and a responsible manner. So when you get sore, when you are breaking down your muscles in that manner, it’s for a couple of reasons, one of them is an unfamiliar activity. So you have, uh, something like water skiing, where you’re a healthy fit, strong person. You go out there the first time of the year. Yeah, you’re going to get sore. But the other one is the eccentric contraction such as lowering the bar, uh, from the top to the bottom or pounding when you’re running down the street or especially running down the Hills. And so when you have an excess of ecentric contractions, that’s also going to make you sore. Basically, it’s a sign that you overdid it and the workout was too stressful.
Brad (10:45):
And when you are trying to repair your broken down sore muscles, the damaged muscle tissues, that is where the protein synthesis is going to be directed to in the aftermath of your workout. So rather than building muscle, you’re going to be repairing broken down muscle instead. So trying to get bigger through workouts that induce a soreness is not logical. It’s not effective. I just had a conversation with the inventor of the X three bar, Dr. John Jake wish he’s on the cutting edge of science and steeped in that, uh, biomedical field. And he was explaining the same thing. That muscle soreness is not the way to go because your body’s resources have to go to repair rather than growth. So he advocates doing a workout with heavy resistance bands using the bar with the bands attached. And then when you’re lowering the bar, rather than a weighted bar, you are easing the tension on the strap and so it’s not risking muscle soreness as you would when you’re lowering a heavy bar from, uh, the place where you put out maximum force, which is at the end of the, uh, end of the lift, the highest point. Yeah, that’s right. Really, really interesting to me because I’ve battled repeated muscle soreness when I’m trying to do my heavy lifting, uh, with the deadlift bar and stay strong. And it’s so important for anti-aging to put your body under resistance load, but we’re now seeing that there are alternative approaches that can minimize your risk of muscle soreness and still keep you strong and powerful and explosive.
Brad (12:22):
Dr.. Phil Maffetone is another one who’s strongly against doing a workout. That’s overly stressful. That’s promoting muscle soreness or post-exercise fatigue. So the concept is if you can kind of stay under the radar and not over activate that stress response with workouts that lasts too long and are too difficult, you can continue to progress over time and get stronger, get faster, get more explosive, improve your endurance without those terrible setbacks, uh, caused by breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury. Um, there’s worse things. I shouldn’t say terrible, terrible, uh, getting sick and going to the hospital. But when you’re working so hard in pursuit of improvement and you get an overuse injury, let’s say for a runner and you’re out for six weeks, uh, it’s such a waste of energy because you experienced the detraining effect because you can’t do the specific activity. Yeah. You can keep in shape through cross training, but none of this stuff is necessary if you approach these sports correctly, especially when you’re doing something extreme, like ultra distance running or long distance running.The great African marathon or the greatest, uh, long distance runner of all time, Eliud Kipchoge who just ran that 01:59. Broke two hours for the marathon running at a superhuman speed of 04:38, I believe per mile for 26 consecutive miles. He has published his training data, his training log, uh, in great detail on the internet and the coaches and. scientists have broken it down and analyzed it.
Brad (13:50):
And you can find some cool links relating to Kipchoge’s training log. But the amazing takeaway for everyone is that this man who is performed at a higher level than any human ever has an endurance running trains in a manner that’s well within his capabilities at all times, he’s not out there at the track puking after his seventh interval, because he wants to get a little faster for the next major marathon and try to break the record. So he’s putting in a lot of his miles at something around around 80% of his maximum capability. Well under his marathon, race, pace and feels great and is never really overextending himself to that point where he has to have a down week arrest week or an injury week. In fact, the consistency of his weekly mileage was another stunning insight because he’s always around 120 to 130 miles a week, even as he leads up to a major competition when it’s been so, uh, popular historically to have a tapering phase where you’re cutting back on your mileage for a couple of weeks to allow your body to recover from the overload that occurred before that.
Brad (14:56):
But if he’s never overloading, if he’s just maintaining the greatest cardiovascular engine in the world, wow. What a concept for all of us to honor to say, yeah, you want to get out there and be consistent with your exercise activities, but never ever push yourself over the edge. And, Oh my gosh, I’m so glad to listen to this myself because I have so much fun doing my sprint and high jump workouts that I get out there on the track and I’m pumped up. I feel great. Of course we feel great when we’re in the heat of the moment there, when we’re in a group pack running, or we have that, uh, exciting opportunity to head to the track. I’m trying to get there once or twice a week. And so boy, I want to get something done. I’m super excited and motivated to take on the challenges.
Brad (15:40):
Uh, but I have a tendency to overdo it where I didn’t even realize it until later until later that afternoon or the next morning or two mornings later, where I realized that I pushed myself too hard. Maybe I brought in some soreness or some, uh, continued fatigue indicated that if I had just backed off a little bit, I could go out there, uh, sooner rather than later, and do another workout and continue on that build, build build. So I’m still getting to the meat of Mike’s question is how do I introduce, uh, running safely after a 20 year layoff? So in your specific example, having a hip replacement and a 20 year break, I’m thinking I’m envisioning a very, very gradual return to running, featuring tons of flexibility, mobility exercises, doing some assessments right out of the gate to see if you have any functional weaknesses that are gonna mess you up when you’re running.
Brad (16:36):
So if you can’t hold a deep squat position, let’s say for three or four or five minutes comfortably, if you’re going to fall over on your butt or your front of your shins are gonna burn, these are areas of functional weakness that you could work on in the gym or at home doing lunges, holding certain positions, like holding the lunge position, uh, doing some dynamic stretching where you’re getting your hamstrings and, uh, taking an exaggerated forward step where you kick your hamstring high up into the air. You can see me doing that on the, uh, uh, sprint, uh, drills video. I have beginner and I have advanced, uh, so doing stuff like that and minimizing the duration of your outings to where you’re only jogging for five or 10 minutes, you’re doing some more drills and you’re heading home and just allowing the muscles, joints and connective tissues to get stronger and stronger before you try and go out there and do something silly, like, uh, running for an hour after 20 years off with a new hip.
Brad (17:34):
That would be my suggestion is kind of more varied workouts where it’s not just plodding down the street with bad form, bad mechanics and functional weaknesses and imbalances. How does that sound? Yeah, so definitely go look at those. Um, I think they’re called, uh, Brad Kearns, uh, running drills, uh, intermediate and Brad Kearns running drills advanced. And that’ll give you some fun stuff to do, uh, in the midst of, uh, jogging, walking to recover after the drills, right? So we don’t want the workout to be too strenuous. And I’m going to do a whole show on this because I have evolved my daily morning jog, uh, with the dogs or jumping out of the chest freezer and rewarming, uh, something I’ve been doing as a habit routine for 40 years now since high school, uh, I’ve transformed that from a steady state cardiovascular workout to something that’s more varied. And I think it’s been a phenomenal breakthrough. I wrote a couple lengthy articles about it that you’ll see on Mark’s Daily Apple, but the gist of it is that, uh, leaving aside the steady date, the steady state cardio and the risk factors involved with performing steady state cardio, uh, for years and years on end, where you can kind of dip above that maximum aerobic heart rate and cause all kinds of problems for yourself accordingly, uh, which is very easy to do, especially now I’m living up here at altitude. I might have a run that, uh, increases elevation, uh, in the first couple of miles. So, uh, getting my heart rate up too high and then getting back home and having a workout that was not purely fat burning, uh, just due to, uh, inattention or, uh, lack of discipline where I, I kept going instead of slowing down to a walk, uh, that can be really, really counterproductive. And instead giving myself permission to take walking breaks, do stretches drills, uh, mobility, flexibility exercises in the midst of this, uh, cardiovascular session, a lot more fun, a lot more mentally stimulating and challenging, uh, broader fitness benefits and then reduced risk factor from the steady state cardio that we all know has become a major, major thing in the endurance scene that this stuff can cause scarring and inflammation of the heart over time, that leads to increased cardiovascular risk factors because you’re the guy that’s a diehard and goes out there and jogs every day.
Brad (19:58):
Uh, okay, I’m going to read a, uh, nice, um, a message from, uh, Maciej And he sent me some really nice emails and he’s having some great success. I think you guys might want to hear from him too. Great success in a short time, because he was introduced to Keto by a coworker only nine months ago. He says’ I was always intrigued because I was not able to lose belly fat, even though I’d been training for hours every week. I wanted to see if this lifestyle would allow me to shed some fat and at the same time, slow me down and let me enjoy my training again. Hey, how about that? Uh, I read Keto Reset and Primal Endurance. Uh, my diet and training are showing great effects on my physique and on my mental state because this training is less stressful. I’ve lost 20 pounds in two months for the first time in my life. I could see veins popping out of my biceps. Jake’s dig that a rat, but because I switched my running to barefoot too quickly, I broke my right foot. Oh man. Sorry about that. I know I’m a big advocate for minimalist shoes and showing off my Vibrams brooms in the running technique video, but absolutely you need to make that transition very gradually.
Brad (21:11):
Uh, I sprint and Vibrams all the time as seen on YouTube, but guess what? I have been wearing those puppies since 2006 when they first came out. So it has taken me years and years and years to acclimate sometimes too quickly and then having to back off, but just wearing those for a short duration sessions, such as a walk or a hike, or you’re not really doing a lot of impact trauma, but getting more and more used to a barefoot experience. And guess what, if you go over to Brad kearns.com, if you haven’t already and sign up for the newsletter list, you can download a free ebook called Amazing Feets, how to gracefully and successfully transition to a barefoot dominant lifestyle. So I give you drills, making ankle circles and heel raises and things that can get your calves and your lower extremities stronger, and then gracefully transitioning into more and more barefoot time.
Brad (22:07):
Okay. So poor guy, uh, broke his foot, uh, than I was, uh, laid up. So he spent time listening to a lot of my podcasts and cooking, healthy meals, taking cold showers every day, doing breathing exercises. Uh, finally, after a full recovery, I realized my insane drive to pursue unrealistic goals was completely gone. Now I look and feel great. Wow. So he had a little, uh, uh, life-changing recalibrating experience, uh, prompted by the injury and some downtime to reflect. And isn’t that nice to extinguish that sort of unhealthy, uh, imbalanced goal that can cause you to make bad decisions and training. So now Maciej says, uh, I go running whenever I want. And thanks to the MAF heart rate limits. I never feel sore or unhappy. I lift heavy things and every hour I try to do pushups. Oh, that’s great. So he’s doing the micro workouts at home too. I have Olympic rings at home. That’s pretty bad ass. Nice, man. I’d love to have some of Olympic rings to hang on over the course of the busy work day, huh. Uh, Everything’s been a very humbling experience. I continue eating mostly fat with some protein and a little carbs. I continue my education listening to Brad’s podcast and watching videos on YouTube. All right. I’m an educator. I’m an official educator in the world. Ah, every single interview, at least something important with me. I’m happier than I used to be. I’m a better man. And finally, the question at the end. How about that? Could you elaborate on how many workouts per week should be, could be glycolytic I’d like to know if you’ve noticed any changes in your running cadence, uh, or changes in your ego. Uh, my cadence has gone way down, I guess, improving his form.
Brad (23:52):
And now that I get past all the time running slowly at 180 minus age pace, it’s very challenging. Uh, as an ex racer used to going fast, this is messing with my mental state and creating frustration. So there was several questions going in that paragraph. I’ll go with the latter one first that’s on all of our minds because I think all of us have experienced that frustration when we’re trying to discipline ourselves to train in an appropriate manner, but it requires reining in that competitive intensity that easily unbridled competitive intensity, that feels really great in the moment that instant gratification you get when you’re on the community bike trail and you blow by some slower writers in your fancy clothes and your fancy bicycle, you get that instant hit of dopamine. The pleasure neurotransmitter that makes you feel a little burst of gratification, but of course, coming at the expense of your longterm progress as an athlete.
Brad (24:46):
So when I was a professional as a lot easier for me to have the healthy perspective that the decisions I made in training translated directly into the ability to, uh, pay the grocery bill and pay the mortgage. So I couldn’t really mess around and allow my ego to go unbridled when I had an important race coming up. So when it was my day to do a recovery bike ride on the bicycle trail, I had absolutely no problem getting passed by young families on their various types of machinery, because I was focused on a very powerful and compelling, distant goal. And I know that’s not the same experience for someone who’s just doing fitness for recreational purposes and maybe has a great time out there, uh, burning off some stored energy, some frustrations from the, uh, stressful workday and decides to pass those people to get a little, uh, burn off a little juice there.
Brad (25:43):
Uh, so that’s fine, but I think we have to, uh, focus on our stated goals and live in a manner that’s concurrent with those stated goals. So if you are a competitor, you have a desire to be the best you can be, um, to get good at fat burning rather than sugar burning. These things, uh, should be in prominent focus when you’re deciding whether or not to adhere to your plan workout pattern. And that also goes for those days when you’re not feeling great, you know, it should be a recovery day, but you want to get that endorphin rush again, that instant gratification of heading out the door and bagging five miles. So you can write something that gives you a sense of self satisfaction into your training log. And so it takes extreme discipline and focus to stay aligned with those longterm high-minded goals and the correct philosophy of, uh, you know, trying to preserve your health while you pursue fitness goals.
Brad (26:38):
So if you can keep those big picture goals in mind, I think your ego will be, uh, placed in check much more easily than if you kind of are out there drifting and don’t have a purpose or don’t have, let’s say, a big race goal to pursue in the future. So for everyone, I think the, the main goal is to preserve health and do things correctly. If you’re going to put that much time and energy into your sporting goals and spend that much money on the bike, uh, pedal correctly, right? Learn how to use proper technique, uh, do the supplementary stuff that may be not, uh, maybe it’s not as much fun as going out there and pounding, but when you do those really slow workouts and build your aerobic system without interference from breakdown, burnout, illness, and injury, that is going to contribute to your performance at all higher levels of intensity.
Brad (27:26):
So that’s the essence of the elite athlete experience. They spend hours and hours and hours doing training that might be considered boring to the average observer, but they know that this is the stuff that brings the big payoff when the bright lights go on and it’s time to shine in a competitive setting. All right, well, that was a great note from a Maciej and also the nice quote comment from the question from Mike Green, asking about getting started, uh, gradually back into running, gave me a new record for an answer to a single question of 14 or 15 minutes, but boy, what a big, uh, big topic of doing things the right way and proceeding without the risk of a breakdown and a regression. So there go another breather show. Participate ifbyou’d like by sending an email to getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com. Have a great day.
Brad (28:22):
Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com. And we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to thanks for doing it.
